In short: Race with the Devil (1975)

Frank (Warren Oates) and Roger (Peter Fonda) and their wives Alice (Loretta Swit) and Kelly (Lara Parker) set off for a tour through the USA to Aspen in Frank’s and Alice’s hypermodern RV. Alas, quite early on in their travels, somewhere out in the sticks, our protagonists witness a satanic ritual including human sacrifice and a bit of mild nudity. Thanks to some ill-advised shouting, the satanists witness them right back. After some excitement the vacationers escape to the nearby sheriff’s department, but as it quickly turns out, spilling the beans to these officials just gives the bad guys more information and probably convinces them that it would be much better to get rid of this meddlesome quartet.

This starts the protagonists off on an RV chase through much US backcountry, where our heroes encounter many a broken phone line (there was a strong wind up north, you know) and a huge amount of satanists. Seriously, turns out there’s basically none but satanists out and about in the country.

Despite the satanist angle, Jack Starrett’s Race with the Devil is a horror movie in name only. Mostly, this is a fine low budget action movie in a style that could only have been used in the 70s, with some excellent car stunts, a handful of crude but highly effective suspense scenes and a huge dollop of very 70s style paranoia. Even though the writing suggests something of an upmarket TV movie, Starrett’s direction is highly energetic, the stunt work is quite wonderful, and the pacing spot on. Add to that Fonda and Oates being Fonda and Oates in their respective primes, and I can’t imagine anyone not dead not enjoying the ride at least a little.

The film moonlights as an incredible time capsule, a living embodiment of the mid-70s, every moment and every detail in it soaked through with the taste and smell of the time it was made in, be it in the portrayal of the satanists (who by the way have Aztec roots as a helpful library book our heroines steal explains), that darn RV and the beatings it takes, the fashion (oh, the fashion!), and even the particular kind of horror movie bullshit ending it features. Unfortunately, 70s machismo does rear its ugly head too, with the female characters mostly relegated to screeching, whimpering, book stealing and in Parker’s case to making frightened eyes at the camera while the menfolk fight around them. There’s a reason I introduced the characters the way that I did.

However, I’m not going to blame a time capsule for being one – you gotta take the awesome with the annoying with this sort of thing.

In short: Idaho Transfer (1973)

I was thinking quite hard about how to best approach the spirit of apathy and half-assed-ness that moves - or rather not - Peter Fonda's sort of SF film Idaho Transfer, but then I was possessed by the spirit of the movie and didn't care anymore if what I wrote became a rambling, incomprehensible, preachy without any actual affection, bunch of nonsense.

And lo, I wrote this: The end of the world, man, who cares? Let's just get transferred into the future, not attempt to find out what destroyed humanity as we know it and wander around apathetically. We're a bunch of apathetic lame-ass hippies, so obviously we're meant to repopulate the world. Just too bad nobody cared to make any actual plans for the event, or realized the whole time travel bit makes us sterile any earlier. I'd be all angry now, but the film only allows us to sulk and wander off a little, because everything else would have needed an actual script or actors able to improvise with a point. And let's be honest, it's difficult enough to keep the characters here apart, seeing as nobody beyond our main character Karen actually does anything or has a personality. And Karen mostly likes to sulk and wants kids, and is kinda (the film's too apathetic for more) sad about the end of the world. Or something.

Just look at the film's awesome-sweet visual metaphors! You know, that stone skipping on the water until it sinks is just like humanity and, um, I'm sure there's a point, but I can't tell what point over the sound of people being apathetic. Man, perhaps Peter should have left that weed alone for the five minutes writing the script must have taken.

And after that, I drifted off into the long, dreamless, apathetic sleep Idaho Transfer felt like.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,sf,in short,peter fonda

Spasms (1983)

Seven years ago, millionaire Jason Kincaid (Oliver Reed) and his brother mounted an expedition into the wilds (or something) of Micronesia to try and get behind the truth of a local legend about the door to hell opening there every seven years to let out a giant snake. The expedition cost the brother his life and left Kincaid with a telepathic connection to and an obsession with a possibly demonic, loud yet stealthy snake of quite variable size.

Now, seven years later, Kincaid has hired some poor idiots to catch his arch enemy and transport it to his mansion in the USA. Kincaid hopes having the thing in close proximity will somehow make it easier to sever the telepathic bond between him and the hellish animal (though the film also insinuates that this particularly dubious idea might actually be caused by the snake's malevolent telepathic influence). To help sever the unpleasant bond, Kincaid hires psychiatrist and ESP researcher Dr. Tom Brasilian (Peter Fonda, who is all relaxed, man).

Alas, evil never sleeps. A snake worshipping cult of satanists thinks Kincaid's snake is the devil himself, and has therefore hired the shady Crowley (Al Waxman) to steal it before it can even get into the millionaire's and Brasilian's hands. This being the sort of film that it is, it will come as no surprise to anyone that Crowley's attempt to steal Plissken the snake (combined with an attempt of Kincaid's niece to kill it that is only in the movie to make things superficially more complicated) only sets the animal/demon/whatever free so that it can finally begin its murder spree.

Will Kincaid and Brasilian be able to stop it before it eats itself through the whole population of a university town?

If this rather confused sounding plot synopsis (and believe me, I left out much that is superfluous and obviously only in the movie to bring it to feature length) has left you in any doubt, let me just state the obvious here first: even in the area of the animals running amok film, where my expectations of quality are especially low, Spasms is a horrible film any way you look at it. William Fruet's direction is at once bland and roughly jumpy, reminding me quite a bit of the worst parts of Mexican lucha cinema of the late 70s, where elderly directors working on material they don't care about with no budget to speak of were pushed into service by producers who frankly didn't care much either. The most obvious difference is the absence of masked wrestlers (Peter Fonda being not a very good Santo) and filler.

Instead of horrible night club scenes, Fruet (also at least co-responsible for the script) prefers to add as many ridiculous and cheesy flourishes right out of the 70s (quite an idea for a film made in 1983) as he can find, producing a film that adds the devil to a giant snake to devil worshippers to virally induced telepathy to Peter Fonda's funding difficulties until there's no room to develop any single element in the movie properly and everything turns into an incoherent mishmash of this, that, and Peter Fonda "charming" leading lady Kerrie Keane.

What I can't say about Spasms however is that it's boring. There's always way too much ridiculous nonsense going on for that problem ever to manifest. The horrible special effects alone, featuring a snake that very much looks like a toy somebody has painted over to look more threatening, should be enough to keep the easily entertained (like me) happy.

While every single element of the film is badly executed, the sheer mass of crap (which, Peter Fonda explains "charmingly", is an unladylike thing to say - in this movie's world, that's the sort of thing you say to a woman to get kissed, by the way) the film throws monkey-like at its audience is nearly automatically entertaining. After all, if you don't like blue snake-o-vision, you'll probably like the very polite satanist ritual, or Al Waxman nearly exploding from snake poison, or the totally subtle gratuitous (as if it ever were) nudity.

Plus, Oliver Reed does some perfectly, inappropriately intense scenery-chewing of the type only the truly great actors know to produce. If that's not enough for you, though, you'd best keep away from Spasms.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: canadian movies,reviews,horror,peter fonda,oliver reed,kerrie keane,al waxman